Record Bin Roulette

4:00 am

Thu July 28, 2011

Political figures have frequently used pop music for an image boost. Bill Clinton played Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow,” and President Obama used the Allen Toussaint song “Yes We Can Can” to great effect.

Humanosphere

5:38 pm

Wed July 27, 2011

Seattle has a plethora of organizations helping people around the world. (Pictured is Seattle International Foundation's Mauricio Vivero in Guatemala, checking on a Seattle-funded microfinance project). A new organization wants to connect them all.

An attack video claiming to expose a housing development in Tacoma "built for illegal immigrants!" has been played more than 300,000 times on YouTube. There’s only one problem, the Tacoma News Tribune reports, it’s completely wrong about almost everything.

Law

2:49 pm

Wed July 27, 2011

OLYMPIA, Wash. – Lapses in training and “serious” safety violations may have contributed to the murder of a Washington correctional officer earlier this year. Those are the findings of a six month investigation by Washington’s workplace safety watchdog.

The agency issued citations and fines Wednesday against the Department of Corrections.

Fraser River salmon

12:26 pm

Wed July 27, 2011

Here is a stretch of the Fraser River in Vancouver, British Columbia. Scientists working with sockeye salmon struggling to cope with warming temperatures in the Fraser River have identified broad genetic traits that can predict which fish will live or die

Government officials in Ottawa are getting heat for apparently muzzling a scientist whose study discovered that a viral infection – which has been referred to as "salmon leukemia" – may be the cause of salmon stocks crashing off Canada’s west coast.

The Vancouver Sun reported that the Privy Council Office, which supports the Prime Minister’s Office, stopped the study’s lead scientist “from talking about one of the most significant discoveries to come out of a federal fisheries lab in years.”

The Canadian government told the Postmedia News, which wrote the story, that scientist Kristi Miller has not been permitted to talk about her work because she is expected to testify later this summer before a commission looking into the decline of the Frazer River sockeye salmon.

Puget Sound

11:18 am

Wed July 27, 2011

BREMERTON, Wash. – A gray whale that washed up on a Bremerton beach was alive when the stranding was reported this morning but it was dead when a National Marine Fisheries employee arrived on the site on Dyes Inlet.